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Anthony Perez
Playing the Blame Game
April 20,2007 - I take just about anything Jack Thompson says with a grain of salt. His illustriously mediocre career is a timeline of failure; a cautionary tale for how not to be an activist. Whether he was asking Janet Reno to checkmark whether she was a hetero- or homosexual, or he was trying to get the Florida Bar Association labeled as unconstitutional, Thompson has made a career out of lies and half-truths, and consequently been the whipping boy of the industries, organizations, and people he’s targeted.
As much as I disagree with Thompson on nearly every view he’s had, I have never commented on him or his activities in a formal editorial. Until now, however, as he has been brought onto several national news programs to discuss the shootings at Virginia Tech. In doing so, Thompson has one upped himself for his past transgressions against human decency by taking advantage of the fragile emotions of the nation and those directly affected by the massacre.

Thompson landed on Fox News and spewed false and spun statistics that Kotaku rightfully corrected through the research of his claims. Fox unfortunately legitimized his statements by crediting him as an expert in school shootings. On MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, however, Thompson didn’t find a doormat anchor that let him run his mouth. Here’s a small excerpt of their exchange.

Thompson: This was all a game to this guy; this was a body count game.

Matthews: You don’t know that, though!

Thompson: I know that from what other school shooters have done. I represented the parents in Paducah…

Matthews: Yes, but you are projecting other cases onto this case. You are projecting what he was doing four or five years ago onto what he was doing this weekend.


Matthews allowed Thompson his rebuttal before finally ending the segment by reasserting that Jack’s testimony was only a theory. Matthews should have called it a paper-thin one, as well. Thompson has spent the majority of his air time taking facts and statistics out of context and perpetuating those ideas as the motivating factors for Seung-Hui Cho's actions.

Sure, he might have played mature video games considering he fits the demographic (male 18-34), but he was just as likely to read something like Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. Just because someone is exposed to violent media doesn't mean they will turn into killers. In fact, the vast majority of mass murderers and the most brutal of human slaughters worldwide took place well before the advent of Grand Theft Auto. It may be a risky assumption to make, but I doubt the Holocaust, the Rwandan Genocide, or the 1966 University of Texas shooting were inspired by video games.

Also being used in the media as a possible link to Cho's actions is the Korean film, Oldboy. In the film, a man is abducted and imprisoned for 15 years for no reason before being released. He is forced into a small cell with only a television for company. His isolation drives him to madness and hatred, and once released, he is consumed with the desire to hunt down his abductor.

Cho's photos mailed with his video manifesto to NBC during the mysterious two-hour gap between his shootings feature him in similar poses as those used in the Oldboy ads, and the emotions he expresses in the video match those of the character from the film. But like with any violent media consumed by a murderer, his aggressive and ill mental state already existed prior to his consumption of said media. Violent media only facilitated his anger and frustration with a world and society he felt had somehow wronged him.

Cho's issues were much deeper than some epiphany he may have gotten while playing Counter-Strike or watching Oldboy. His relatives from South Korea, where he lived until the age of eight, expressed concern regarding his attitude before his formative teen years. What Jack Thompson and others need to do is stop pushing an agenda forward in light of a tragedy, whether it’s anti-video games or anti-guns. Instead, they should regret the loss of young lives and the breaking point of a young man who harbored violent schizophrenic thoughts that weren’t addressed in time.

Our deepest condolences go out to the families and communities of those killed in the Virginia Tech shootings.
4/20/07 - 11:39 AM
Joined:
2/3/04
Nearly everything that Jack Thompson say is pretty much BS. Counter-Strike is not game where you shoot everyone in sight... Thats pking and the enemys shoot back.
4/20/07 - 2:11 PM
Joined:
1/24/05
I know he just goes off and says the goal of the game is to just kill as many people as possible. It's a tactical shooter in which you work as a team to beat another team, it's not about mindless slaughter. I'm sorry, but there's no way a game can train you to do anything. Media itself has desensitized our generation, either via entertainment or more graphic news images. For instance, we wouldn't be disgusted by the final scene in Taxi Driver, but it turned people's stomachs in the 70s.
4/20/07 - 9:12 PM
Joined:
5/13/05
And you wouldn't have not been disgusted had I not made you watch that film.

Here's what I say. This is all a game for Jack Thompson. A body count game. He's trying to stir the pot as quick and hard as he can and take down as many arbitrary people in our industry and any media-related industry as clumsily as possible. He can't even understand the concept of a counter terrorism simulation shooter before going on national television. Yet he blindly attacks the game and uses it as a primary flag for Seung-Hui Cho's mental state at the time of the shooting. No virtual, other-dimensional, or pre-practiced device, game, or simulation can fully or partly prepare a sentient person to murder another breathing individual. I don't buy the "theory" to begin with, but even if Cho had been "practicing" via Counter Strike, it is not a suitable scape goat. He had been hospitalized and diagnosed with a mental illness before hand. This situation was due to a lack of intervention on the part of mental health staff and a disgustingly stupid strategy on the part of the University. Everyone should have been locked down on that campus until Cho was apprehended or found with the murder weapon(s).

I'm still waiting for Jack Thompson's house to be ransacked so we can all sit and scrutinize his vices, pleasures, and missteps through assumption and half-assed evidence.

And Anthony, I agree. We're all overexposed to everything. Virtual limitlessness is happening, and most people our age are bored with it after ten minutes. It's a sign of a declining civilization.
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